Skin Deep Talent

“What I want to know is, what are you good at? What are your talents, or what you think you were born doing well?”

The question was well-timed, coming as it did, on the heels of an older woman who had managed to hijack the five-person youth panel discussion with a 10 minute rant. Not a rant but definitely a hushed lecture responding to most of the points the panel had made directly or indirectly in their 30 minutes on stage. 

The question was a bright spot- a positive way to not only return the panel to the panel (in an audience full of black and brown folks, no one really wanted to interrupt a gray-haired elder) and wrap it up on a high note. The moderator smiled brightly and turned to the three young men and two young women on the stage, to offer them the floor. 

Jace, deep bass voice steaming out of a dimpled baby face, answered first. “Running. My family says since I was a baby I’ve been running. I’m good at running.” He pushed the microphone over to the young woman to his left. She shook her head a little. The rest of the group sat quietly, even as the moderator revisited the question. 

“I think everyone should answer this one.” She focused her attention on the young woman Jace had motioned toward. “What are you good at?” 

The question was met with silence. “I mean, you are gorgeous. Let’s just start there. You are gorgeous – you both are,” she nodded at the other young lady on the panel, “how do you use that gorgeousness toward other talents?”

I may have misquoted that last line but she said something closely resembling that. I was shaking my head violently and looking for somebody, anybody, to share my derision of this turn of conversation. Everyone seemed to be looking intently at the stage. 

A few more moments of silence and as the facilitator finally ended the panel the young woman leaned in slightly toward the mike, “biology…” her voice trailed and was swallowed by the shuffle of people leaving the stage. 

You are gorgeous? Seriously? A woman’s talent is how gorgeous she is? Even more heinous to me, that notion of “pretty as credentials” was presented by a woman in a leadership capacity.

What do we do with that?

Already the young women spoke the least. The young men answered questions first and most often. Each of the young women spoke no more than twice – less than five minutes combined of a 30 plus minute presentation.

I know that beauty – regardless of gender- is a commodity in this country. Beautiful people get paid more, beautiful children get attended to better. But beauty isn’t a talent. Beauty can be an asset, but it is an asset with precarious spikes. Precarious because beauty – by mainstream American standards – is a fleeting thing that (especially for women) recedes with age. But more importantly, viewing beauty as a talent can minimize the way a young woman sees herself and her potential. That biology talent fades into the shadow of the beauty one.  And while biology talent can lead to confidence in her ability to compete and a STEM career, “beauty” demands external judgments and validation…to what end? 

How many pretty girls become models or actresses? Beautiful as their only acknowledged talent, what else is there to aspire to?

My sister made fun of me when my nieces were born. I was careful in my language to compliment them, even as infants, on how smart I knew they’d become, trying to counter each, “aren’t you so cute” that sailed- with the best of intentions – their way. 

Hell, I’m guilty of it too. I see a tiny nugget laughing joyously or sleeping peacefully and I think, how adorable—I say, “how adorable.” Being adorable isn’t the problem, acknowledging adorable at the exclusion of everything else is. Beauty as single identifier. 

Beauty may be all we know of someone when we are meeting them for the first time, but when they are offered an opportunity to introduce themselves to the world I hope they are able to express more than what is skin deep, I hope we adults encourage them to know what is more than skin deep.

When the young woman returned to the seat in front of me I tapped her on the shoulder; all I could think to say was, “your talents are more than your beauty.” Lame, I know. She smiled uncertainly at me and said thank you. And then she returned to her day. We all returned to our day.